- February 14, 2014
- 293
An argument over the Polish minority in Lithuania. The next chairman’s of the MFA harsh words
– It is hard for our Lithuanian friends to accept something which is an obviousness in the whole European Union – said in a Polish radio One the minister of the Foreign Affairs of the PR Radosław Sikorski.
Since years, the Poles living in Lithuania fight for the right to write their names and surnames in Polish. At a snail’s pace the works on the project of the new regulations, which are to allow to use the language of national minorities in the public life and for a binominal nomenclature of the streets and localities where the representatives of the minorities stand for at least 25 percent of inhabitants, are being done.
This month the Prime Minister of Lithuania Algirdas Butkevicius has stated that he would like to meet with the Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The politicians would talk about the mutual relations which in the last time are not panning out the best.
Minister R. Sikorski didn’t want to talk on that subject. He said to aim the questions at the Chairman of the Ministers Council Chancellery. He admitted however, that on the Polish-Lithuanian relations an unsettled issue of the Polish minority is weighted down. As Radosław Sikorski was saying, the problem isn’t however the lack of conversations between the authorities of Poland and Lithuania. – In Europe, we are talking with each other all the time. What is lacking is the decision on the Lithuanian side to treat Polish minority according to the European standards – added the head of the Polish diplomacy.
And after a moment, he said: – In the regions where a minority stands for a big group, the binominal nomenclatures of the localities can be applied and the surname is an element of human’s identity and administratively one shouldn’t change it. It surprises me that in the European Union, in the 21st century, someone has a problem with it.
Not for the first time minister Sikorski harshly criticized Lithuania. A few days ago he stated that the government in Vilnius did few to improve the situation of the Polish minority. – It is very nice that the Prime Minister of Lithuania is ready to meet and talk but it would be even better if Lithuania resolved one of the pressing for twenty-five years problems – said the minister.
On the basis of polskieradio.pl
Tłumaczenie by Małgorzata Bigoraj w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Małgorzata Bigoraj within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
